


if you were a city

by brilligspoons



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 04:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/pseuds/brilligspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>A gust of wind blows around her. Lydia blinks, and the next thing she knows two arms are encircling her chest and pulling her tight against the body they're attached to.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"You smell delicious," a voice whispers against the shell of her ear.</i></p><p> </p><p>I am going to set the entire supernatural world on fucking fire, <i>Lydia thinks.</i></p><p>Or, an AU in which Lydia finally makes it to the east coast and MIT after dealing with the madness that is Beacon Hills' incompetent werewolf pack for two years, only to find out that she and Harvard Square really don't mix well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you were a city

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/gifts).



> With apologies to the people who work at Tealuxe. I don't actually think they're a coven of murderous witches.
> 
> Anyway, hope you like the story! <3 Title is from [Traveler](http://www.decompmagazine.com/traveler.htm) by Heather Sommer.

There's a point somewhere around her third week in Boston when Lydia thinks that her new life on the east coast is going to be everything she's been missing for the last two years: quiet, safe, and, most importantly, one hundred percent normal.

Stiles won't be calling her at three in the morning (unless he forgets the time difference) to come pick him and Scott up from the reserve, worse for wear and dripping blood all over the interior of her car. Deaton and Morrell won't be on her case to learn the most obscure languages known to man. There won't be any blacking out and waking up in parts of Beacon Hills she has no business being in. No being dragged into dangerous situations by a bunch of clueless teenage werewolves (and their even more clueless adult alpha). It's going to be _excellent_ , she can already feel it in her bones. She's made a clean break of it with Jackson, neither of her parents live there anymore, and Lydia is a student at MI-fucking-T where she will lose herself in all things mathematics and change the world in ways that aren't found in grimoires and bestiaries.

She feels it in her bones slightly less when she decides to take Harvard Square on after she's been living in Boston for a little over a month.

When she first visited the MIT campus to meet her advisor and get a feel for the surrounding area, Lydia and her mother didn't have much time for sightseeing. They took cabs everywhere, figuring that there would be plenty of time and opportunity for Lydia to get acquainted with the area once she moved for good. Anyway, Lydia prided herself on being able to navigate blindly through endless trees and mountains and dirt roads in adrenaline-fueled situations, and she figured it wouldn't be very long before she knew Boston and its surrounding areas like the back of her hand.

During her third hour of being hopelessly lost in Harvard Square, however, Lydia begins to wonder if maybe she should simply admit defeat and take up residence on the corner she keeps ending up on no matter how many different side streets she turns down. Google maps doesn't seem to know where the bus stop she needs is, everyone she's stopped to ask directions has either been from out of town or doesn't know the bus route at all, and she could _swear_ that she'd seen the same five storefronts on the other side of the street not even a minute ago. In a fit of frustration tinged with anxiety, Lydia swings herself around wildly and stomps off in a direction that doesn't look too familiar (yet).

And that is when Lydia trips over the most beautiful girl she has ever seen.

Of course, the realization that this girl is ridiculously attractive doesn't happen until much later that night, when she's safe and snug back in her apartment. At the moment, Lydia is mostly concerned by the fact that she's just a) tripped and fallen in front of an audience, b) landed on her knees and the palms of her hands, causing her to bleed in multiple places, c) ripped her brand new tights, and d) shattered her phone. She bites her tongue against the expletives that swell up into her throat and reaches for her phone before it gets stolen or kicked away by the crowds of college students and tourists swarming around her.

"Oh, shit," someone says next to her. "I'm so sorry, I was just stretching my leg out, I didn't mean for -"

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the Titanic didn't mean to sink," Lydia grumbles as she inspects the splintered remains of her phone, "and yet here we are, sweetheart."

A hand wraps around her elbow and tugs her until she's kneeling upright, and then continues to pull her to her feet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lydia's manners are pleading for her to say _it's fine_ and _thank you for your totally unnecessary help, kind stranger who caused this_ , but she is tired and lost in a new place (which is so mortifying) and bleeding and sore and above everything else annoyed, so she allows herself to shrug off the hand with a little more emphasis than is probably necessary. Lydia spins around on her heels and comes face to face with dark curls, wide eyes, and a facial expression that screams _please don't hate me_. The image throws her off from her irritation for a moment before she recovers and revises her plan to rip into the person who did this to her. Lydia is still lost, after all, and she can spot a local (or long-term resident, at the very least) from a mile away.

The girl starts to say something, but Lydia cuts her off with a flick of her hair and says, "I'll forgive you, but only if you show me where the bus stop is."

Lydia's demand obviously takes her aback, but the girl closes her mouth. The corners of her lips quirk up into a small smile.

"Which bus?" she asks, and Lydia just barely stops herself from throwing her arms around the stranger and bursting into tears.

"Perfect," Lydia says.

Later that night, she gets on Skype with Stiles and before he can ask her anything, she says, "Leaving my apartment is a terrible idea, and I should never do it again. I hate Boston."

"No, you hate Harvard Square," he says, "which isn't even part of Boston. Really what you hate is Cambridge, which is funny because that's also where you go to school."

"You know I hate it when you try to be clever with me, Stilinski."

"Sorry. Look, I thought that you said everything was going great, but it sounds like you've barely left your apartment for anything other than classes. Maybe you should get out and explore some more? Like, I know you're a control freak and all, but getting lost and figuring it out from there isn't the worst idea."

Lydia frowns at him, says, "Oops, power outage," and then disconnects from Skype entirely. Her phone chimes a minute later with a text from Stiles that's just a long line of angry-face emojis and then, _very mature, Lydia_. Whatever. She finally knows which bus takes her to the MIT buildings where most of her classes take place, and for everything else, there's delivery.

***

Except then Lydia starts to make friends at school here and there, and those friends say, "Hey, there's this really good restaurant that makes amazing quesadillas," and _of course_ that restaurant is in Harvard Square. That's just Lydia's luck. She says yes, only because she knows the chances of her running into the girl she tripped over are very, very low. Harvard Square is small, but it's always packed with people, and a second encounter with a perfect stranger is not all that likely.

She's ashamed to admit it, even to herself, but she hasn't been able to get the girl out of her mind. Stiles' pointed comments about "love at first sight" and "finally moving on from that douche" only make her more irritated about the whole thing, too - she doesn't even believe in love at first sight, no matter what her rather extensive collection of romantic comedies and romance novels might say about her. There's a difference between fiction and reality, she reminds Stiles multiple times.

("And don't you dare bring up werewolves, Stilinski, I swear to god."

"I wasn't going to! I was going to smile and nod. Really, though, it's kind of sweet -"

Lydia often wonders why he still talks to her, considering how often she hangs up on him mid-conversation.)

The restaurant turns out to be surprisingly delightful, though the noise level makes the first few minutes after being seated a little awkward. Lydia order a virgin margarita and drains half a glass quickly, declaring it more than acceptable when the others laughingly ask her if it's as good as advertised. She doesn't think it's all that funny, but it's enough to break the ice, so she mentally pats herself on the back. Conversation flows after that, swinging from the latest comic book news (which Lydia knows next to nothing about but fakes interest in well enough) to the Millennium Prize Problems they're most interested in (Yang-Mills, in Lydia's case, though she knows better than to announce she's already started working on a solution to this crowd).

Hours and a lot of food and margaritas later, Lydia waves goodbye to her classmates and makes her way over to the bus stop the girl had shown her a few weeks before, successfully and all on her lonesome this time. There's only one other person waiting with her, a young man who looks a little like he spends too much time inside and not enough in the sunlight. He's wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt, and, okay, it's only the end of September, but according to Lydia's local classmates, it's unusually cold for this time of year. Lydia's shivering in her jean jacket with every gust of air that blows by, but while her excuse is that she's used to a slightly warmer climate, there's just something alarming about the way he seems completely unaffected.

He looks over at her suddenly, and she tears her gaze away and focuses instead on the glowing signs of the restaurants across the street from the bus stop. A low chuckle reaches her ears, and the back of her neck prickles uncomfortably. She brushes off the sensation. _You're not in Beacon Hills anymore,_ she thinks. _The bus is going to come in a minute, and nothing bad is going to happen between now and then._

A gust of wind blows around her. Lydia blinks, and the next thing she knows two arms are encircling her chest and pulling her tight against the body they're attached to.

"You smell delicious," a voice whispers against the shell of her ear.

 _I am going to set the entire supernatural world on fucking fire,_ Lydia thinks.

She drives the pointed heel of her shoe into what she hopes is the spot where his toes meet the rest of his foot and leans forward as far as she can with his arm still around her. It must work, because her attacker yelps and releases her, giving Lydia the opportunity to swing around and smack him across the face with her (very heavy) purse. It's the man in the t-shirt, of course, but Lydia knows enough not to stick around for him to recover. She slips off her heels and starts to run across the street in bare feet, hoping that one of the restaurants will be filled enough to conceal her. Just as she's about to step off the sidewalk, though, the man appears in front of her again, his face twisted into an ugly snarl, lips parted to reveal two sharp fangs in place of his eye teeth.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Lydia breathes out.

"Nobody's joking here, entree," he replies, lisping a little. The vampire lunges forward, clearly aiming for her neck, but his body jerks weirdly before he can reach her. His expression changes into one of surprise, and then he explodes into a cloud of ash and dust, revealing the girl from a few weeks earlier holding a wooden stake in one hand.

Lydia's jaw drops. "You," she says.

"Hi again," the girl says with a cheery smile.

"What are you even doing here?" Lydia asks. "How did you know what to do?"

The girl shrugs. "I...protect people. Semi-professionally. You get into an awful lot of trouble, don't you?"

"Excuse me?"

The girl taps her chin with the stake and winks at Lydia. "The loop you were caught in the other day," she elaborates, "and now a vampire? Not a lot of people attract that kind of attention, in my experience."

Lydia huffs. "Just the special ones?"

"I was going to say 'pretty', but 'special' works, I guess. Allison, by the way."

"What?"

"My name, it's Allison, Allison Argent. And you are?"

The bus pulls around a bend in the road and up to the curb where they're standing, and Allison jumps up onto the sidewalk right into Lydia's personal space. The smile is still stretched across Allison's face, and Lydia loses herself for just a second in the depth of those big brown eyes, feeling her cheeks heat up without her express permission. She swallows hard against a sudden lump in her throat.

"Lydia Martin," she mutters, and then she sidesteps around Allison to board the bus.

"I think I'll be seeing you around, Lydia Martin," she hears behind her before the doors close. Lydia sinks into the nearest empty seat and hopes she doesn't.

***

Somehow, Lydia isn't surprised in the least when the tea shop in Harvard Square turns out to be a front for a coven of witches who are hell-bent on performing some sort of reality-altering spell. Or something like that - Lydia's hazy on the details, to be honest. What she is absolutely certain about, however, is that being used as the human sacrifice component of said spell is going to interfere with her midterms in a bad way.

"I should've just gone to Stanford like my father wanted me to," she says, tugging at the ropes binding her hands behind her back. They've left her seated on the cold floor of the stockroom, which is marked up with circles and sigils and other symbols that Lydia doesn't actually think mean anything. "Like, sure, there are werewolves in California, but at least some of them tolerate me. Some of the time."

"Will someone please shut her up?" one of the witches standing around the outermost circle says. "I thought sacrifices were supposed to be terrified to the point of silence or whatever."

"Rude," Lydia says. She tosses her head to move her hair out of her eyes and gives him her best glare. He actually takes a step back. "Look, I'm still relatively new to the whole supernatural lifestyle, but even I can tell your spell's not going to do much at all." She jerks her head to the left to indicate the symbols drawn on the floor in that quadrant of the circle. "That ogham over there by the basket of flowers, under the candles, says 'chicken and cheese'. Are you summoning dinner? I hope you're ordering enough for all of you."

There's a brief silence, and then she hears someone whisper, "You said they meant 'threads of life'."

"Shut up, they _do_ ," is the agitated response from another witch.

Lydia can practically feel the allergic reaction to incompetency rising up underneath her skin. She rolls her eyes. Her legs are starting to cramp, so she shifts her weight from one knee to the other and back again, trying to make herself comfortable since it looks like she might be there for a while, despite the fact that plan A is already in effect.

The problem with her primary plan of sassing them into messing up and then laughing when they fail miserably is that Lydia is only ninety percent sure the spell won't amount to anything. The quadrant in front of her, for example, seems legitimate enough that damage _could_ be done, but not necessarily in the way the coven seems to be expecting. People could die - well, _Lydia_ could die, is the thing, and she'd rather avoid that at all costs. It doesn't help that whoever tied her up has to have been a scout, because the goddamn ropes just weren't coming loose no matter how much she twisted and rubbed at them.

"I know I set everything up the right way, guys," one of the witches says. "She's playing mind games with us. Just slice her throat open and let's get this over with already."

A second later, there's a flash of silver in the corner of her eye and then the pressure of something thin and flat against her throat. The coven starts to chant all around her in what sounds like a mish-mash of church Latin and ancient Greek. She hopes they take her wincing as a result of the knife pressing into her skin and not because of their terrible pronunciation.

Lydia's luck being what it is, for better or worse, Allison chooses that exact moment to force her way through the stockroom door, followed closely by an older man and woman. All three of them have a gun in each hand, a third on their hips, and what looks like enough extra ammo to take out a small drug cartel. The dagger against Lydia's throat drops to the floor with a loud clatter, and the chanting ceases completely, much to her relief. She sniffs and clears her throat when Allison's gaze drops to her, guns still pointed across the room at the witches.

"I knew you'd be trouble when you tripped over me," Allison says.

Lydia forgets to be cool about having to be rescued by Allison again ( _and about how much you like it_ , the voice in her head that sounds like Stiles helpfully adds) and scowls at her. "Did you just deliberately misquote Taylor Swift lyrics at me in the middle of a crisis?"

"Now is not the time for flirting, ladies," the man says.

" _Dad_ ," says Allison. She winks at Lydia.

Lydia closes her eyes and prays for a convenient meteor strike to hit.

Later, after Allison's cut her loose from the ropes and the Argents have handed the witches off to the police to be charged with who-knows-what, Lydia attempts to slip out of the tea shop without being noticed. It's been a really long day, she tells herself, and Allison will probably be busy helping her parents destroy the markings on the floor, so it's better for her to go home, rest, study for her midterms, and never step foot inside Harvard Square ever again. She likes this plan, and it works as far as the bus stop when someone grabs her elbow.

"You know, I was thinking -"

Lydia groans and tugs her arm out of Allison's grip. "I just want to go home now. Thanks for saving my life, goodbye."

Allison actually bats her eyelashes at her. Lydia hasn't felt this out of her depth since she started dating in middle school. Not even werewolves threw her off this much.

"But what if you need my help again?" Allison asks. "We should exchange phone numbers."

"Um, no thanks."

"And you should maybe let me take you out to dinner."

Lydia stares at her in disbelief. "Did you just - are you asking me out right now?"

"No time like the present," Allison says with a shrug. She turns her head to stare intently at the people waiting for a bus to arrive. She seems nervous, almost, and Lydia closes her eyes before letting out an exaggerated sigh.

 _Stiles can never know about this,_ she thinks.

"Fine, fine," Lydia says. Allison looks at her again, the start of a surprised smile curving her lips. Lydia's heart stutters, but she waves a hand between them and snaps her fingers. "Your phone, please, before I come to my senses again. I swear, if you take me someplace in fucking Harvard Square, I will make your life a living hell."

"I don't doubt that for a second," says Allison as Lydia programs her number into her phone.

"Something fancy."

Allison nods, smile widening. Lydia takes a step back to stop herself from lunging forward and kissing it off her face. There's a bus coming around, and despite the fact that it's not even the one that will take her home, Lydia absolutely needs to get on it, if only to get her as far away from Allison as possible (for now).

"Okay," Lydia says as she backs away. "Bye."

Allison laughs, and Lydia shoves her way to the front of the line, ignoring all the people who grumble at her for cutting. Whatever. They can talk to her when they've just been asked out by a pretty girl who's saved their lives multiple times.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket as she slips into an empty seat. It's a text from an unknown number, and it's just a smiley face but the sight of it makes her face blaze white hot. _I hate Harvard Square so much,_ she thinks, and saves the number under the contact name _Allison :)_.


End file.
